The Hour 200 word Shuffle drabbles
by GeneFlowers
Summary: Some drabbles I wrote about 'The Hour' based on songs that came up on shuffle. Mainly Freddie/Bel, some Hector, Lix/Randall, Ruth. WARNING: contains spoilers for series 2 episode 1. Please review!


**A/N: So, as you may guess by the title, I decided to write some drabbles about 'The Hour', based on songs that came up on shuffle. Most of them are 200 words or under (apart from the last one where I got a bit carried away), and the majority are Bel/Freddie, although there is some Lix/Randall and some Hector. Ooh, and Ruth too! They're probably really rubbishe since I tried to write them in the time the song was playing, but I'm just putting this out there as there needs to be more Hour fic, and I hope you enjoy! SPOILERS btw.**

**200 hundred word shuffle drabbles – The Hour**

Rockin' All Over The World - Freddie

Freddie was on the road. The highway. The great Route 66, making his way across America, from California in the West, to New York in the East. An open top Chevrolet, which he had hired with the last of his wages from 'The Hour'. Not a soul in sight, the wind in his hair, sun beating down on the back of his neck. He let out a cry of pure, unadulterated delight and joy. He felt _free, _for the first time in years. Freee of everything: of news and corruption, and responsibilities and...well...Bel. He just couldn't take it there anymore, not every day. He still wished she was here with him though. Still, America stretched out before him for miles and miles, and he honestly didn't think he'd rather be anywhere else at this moment.

Chasing Cars - Bel/Freddie

Bel walked home, bottle of wine clutched in one hand, bags full of steak and rum baba in the other. She didn't cry. She wouldn't. After all, she was happy for him, wasn't she? It wasn't as if she'd been reconsidering, really properly thinking about, how she felt about Freddie in the months he had been gone. Not as if when he'd turned up and interrupted her in the office this morning that she hadn't slowly decided she was going to make everything right, put into action that future they'd always discussed, her just playing, but to him, she had begun to think, it was deadly serious. Maybe not. Never mind, she didn't need anyone, right? She was strong and independent; she could make it on her own. But she selfishly wished she could just have one more evening just with him, lying on their backs in one of their messy living rooms, just chasing cars.

Open Arms - Bel/Freddie

How she had missed him. That idiot boy, with his ridiculous hair and outspoken opinions. How she had wished for him to come back home. She would have welcomed him with open arms, she really would have. She had more than missed him. She was her right-hand man, the James Bond to her Moneypenny, and her heart had broken a little when she heard she had left. But he hadn't told her he was coming back. Worse, he had strolled in behind her back, with a new beard to match his new attitude, and become co-presenter. Oh, of course the logical part of her brain told her Randall was really responsible, but she couldn't help but blame Freddie a little. She knew it was illogical. After all, hadn't she been longing to have him back? Oh, but she had to be angry at him, just for a little while, even if she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she was really angry at herself for missing him so much. And so she was cold to him, and annoyed when everyone was out there singing his praises and being 'inspired', as though he hadn't just upped and left.

Kids in America - Bel/Freddie

Bel got out of the yellow cab outside a hotel in Manhattan. She is about to enter, when a loud voice yelling 'Moneypenny!' stops her.

Freddie rushes towards her and stops just short of her bemused expression.

'Hello James,' she says softly. Freddie grins.

'You came!' he says with joy.

'Well...yes,' she says, wondering what he's talking about. She has no time to ponder however, as he is dragging her by her hand down the street.

'Freddie! I was about to check in!' she says, gesturing at her suitcase.

'No need for that. You can come and stay at my place,' he grins happily. He doesn't give her time to argue.

Much later, when they are very slightly drunk and dancing at a jazz club in Downtown New York, Freddie mentions something about a letter.

'What letter?' Bel asks, not sure if she's heard him correctly. He is leaning towards her, much closer than normal, and this is more distracting than she'd really like to admit.

'Oh.' For a moment, Freddie looks crestfallen, but then recovers, spins her around and around, and continues to dance with her. He never holds her as close again, though.

Viva la Vida Freddie/Bel/Hector

'She told you. Well, I knew she'd tell you. I mean, you're her best friend.'

Freddie could barely take in what he was saying. Bel and Hector? Well, he supposes he saw it coming, he thinks bitterly. But he wished...he just wished things were different. That more could happen between them. He knew he was good for her. He kept her on her toes, and she kept him on his, and he made her laugh, and sent her love poetry...he cringed awkwardly. What was it about him that stopped them from going any further? Surely she knew that if they were a couple, he would never try and make her stop working, doing what she loved. But she would rather have flings with posh, stuck-up, married men, as if that made her somehow immune to the depth of his feelings.

Take Your Mama - Freddie/Bel/Freddie's parents

'So...it's my mother's birthday today...want to come with, Moneypenny?'

'Your..._mother's _birthday party? Surely they don't want me there?'

'Rubbish. They've been dying to meet you.' Freddie grins.

'Alright then, although it's not quite the first date I had in mind, James,' she says flirtatiously. Freddie tries to hide his blush.

'Mum, Dad, this is my friend, Miss Rowley...Bel, this is my mother, May, and my Father, Malcolm.'

Introductions made, the three proceeded to greet each other (Bel with a certain amount of awkwardness, Freddie's parents with the enthusiasm that Freddie had clearly inherited from them). The warmth of the restaurant coupled with her slight embarrassment (she couldn't remember the last time she'd met a man's parents, never that Freddie and she, as she kept pointing out to Lix, were not an item) caused her to take off her coat, and Freddie was there helping the sleeves off her arms before she'd even had time to think. When he had finished, she turned around to face him, and they grinned at each other.

We Cry - Ruth/Freddie/Bel

Ruth was pregnant. She had thought so for a while, actually, but now she was sure. She exited the doctor's into the rain, not bothering to raise her umbrella or hail a taxi, the rain disguising the tears on her face as she thought of all the things she could have been and done and what she was now. Bracing herself at their London home, she prepared to tell her parents.

Freddie ran out the door of his Dad's flat, down the stairs and into the rain. He needed food. He needed to cry. He needed Bel. Tears flowing freely down his face as he left his father's prized possessions behind along with the last living memories of the man Freddie had looked up to all his life.

He was at Bel's sooner than he realised and began hammering on the door for her to let him in, finally sinking to the floor when he realised nobody was in. He collapsed in a heap and wept, and when he woke up in the morning, and nobody answered the door still, he decided to go to America.

The Importance of Being Idle - Hector

'Do you really not read it?' Bel had asked him as they walked the corridors of Lime grove Studios. She really was sweet, he thought. Terribly intelligent and diligent, but strangely naive at the same time. Particularly when it came to laziness. Hector had never been one to take the longer route if he could cut corners. It was only sensible, he thought, to use the advantages one has. That's why he didn't feel too bad about Wallace bagging him this job. And that's why he pretended not to feel guilty every time he betrayed his wife. After all, he thought, what was wrong with a little harmless pleasure, if one was afforded such luxuries. He supposed that's why Freddie didn't like him. Well he could bugger off. If Freddie had had his advantages, he would have taken them too, wouldn't he?

Holiday in Spain - Lix/Randall

'It's been a long time.' Randall's voice crept up behind Lix and she nearly jumped out of her seat. It was the years of getting used to loud noises, bombs dropping and guns being shot, first in Spain and then in France, that she had to thank for the fact that she remained stock still. And Randall knew it. He had, after all, been there. And then he had gone.

'You were the one who left,' she said, only slightly petulantly, turning to face him. A ghost of a smile appeared for a second, then he was inscrutable.

'I did.' Was his only reply.

'And was it the right decision?' Lix couldn't quite believe she was asking this. At least she kept her face straight. Years of practice, that expression, the one they both showed the world most of the time. All of the time, Lix corrected. Nobody else saw below the surface anymore.

'Maybe.' He said.

'You haven't changed a bit,' Lix stated, dryly.

'Neither have you.'

Imagine - Freddie/Bel

'A manifesto! That's what we need, a manifesto!' Freddie yelled in excitement, the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed that night just beginning to catch up with him.

'Yess,' replied Bel, slurring only slightly (she was drunker than he was). 'Stating our aims and int-t-tenshuns!'

'Exactly!' said Freddie, giggling hysterically at her stumbling. She tried to glare back at him, but succeeded only in going cross-eyed. This only made Freddie worse.

'Freddie!' she exclaimed in desperation.

'Sorry, Moneypenny,' he said, calming himself. 'Now where were we?'

'Well, James,' she said, giggling, 'you were talking about a manif-manif-manifesto!'

'Aha! Yes...first of all...we imagine...'

'Imagine? You can't say that, Freddie. It's 'We _want_',' she said, snatching the pen from him, and scribbling it down.

'Fine,' said Freddie, prising it from her loose grip again and writing '_We want true democracy, a government who listens to its people_'. 'What else?' he asked.

'We want...we want...two children called Gilbert and Maud!' Bel exclaimed triumphantly. She really was drunk, thought Freddie, blushing.

'Well...that's not strictly speaking the sort of thing one usually writes on manifestos but...'

'_Write it_' said Bel, suddenly turning fierce. Not one to deny Bel when she was in a bad mood (or ever, when it came to it), Freddie wrote '_We want two children called Gilbert and Maud.' _'Gilbert and Maud..._really_, Moneypenny?'

Bel blushed. 'What? I've always wanted those names!' she said defensively, barely even slurring her words this time.

'I didn't think you wanted any children?' asked Freddie quite seriously.

'I don't just want any children, silly,' she said, aiming to playfully slap arm and missing by a smile, 'I want _your _children.'

The atmosphere suddenly became a lot less playful, a lot more intense. Freddie stared into Bel's beautiful blue eyes, wondering if she could really mean what she said. Then she snorted and he closed his eyes, berating himself for even considering such a thing to be possible.

The next morning, when Freddie woke up on the floor after being pushed off the sofa by a sleeping Bel in the night he mentioned Gilbert and Maud. Bel claimed no recollection of the previous night's machinations whatsoever. But whenever he brought the subject up, Bel would always smile and nod along, glad in spite of herself that he still remembered her drunken ramblings.


End file.
